Canada in the Fifties

As the century turns, generational retrospectives are cropping up everywhere—a look back requires only file footage, the cut and paste. Recent books documenting Canadian life in the 1950s include Canada in the Fifties (Viking), selections from the archives of Maclean's and A Woman's Place (Key Porter), the Chatelaine equivalent, edited by Sylvia Fraser. These are goofy stories but whether it was the age or our interpretation of it that was goofy, is hard to say. In A Woman's Place, we're given the "Do's and Don'ts of Picking a Hat": "Don't whatever you do, underestimate the importance of a hat. Without a hat, a street costume is unfinished and flavourless" and a female journalist's painful "coming out" entitled "I confess I'm a bleached blond." ("I bleach my hair. There—I've said it and I'm glad. And I'm not hiding behind any pen name.")

In the Madean's book we get the Avro Arrow, the Dionne Quints, Marilyn Bell's swim across Lake Ontario. Other stories establish the tonal quality of the era: Will a Machine ever Take your Job? (1955); "Just look at the old Ice-Cream Parlor now!(1956): "Going Steady: Is it Ruining our Teenagers?" (1959): and "Good